Fade to Black td-119

by Warren Murphy

  THE CRISIS in Washington had crawled into the silent postmidnight hours, and still Harold W. Smith had not left his desk. Eyes burning with fatigue, he was sitting in his battered leather chair scanning the latest information from out of the nation's capital when the red White House phone buzzed to life.

  He jumped in his chair. Fingers fleeing his keyboard, he quickly picked up the receiver.

  "Yes?" he said, voice tentative. As if unsure who might be on the other end of the line. "Break out your checkbooks-the White House is safe once more for Chinese arms dealers and South American drug lords," Remo's familiar voice proclaimed.

  "Remo," Smith exhaled. "Is the crisis over?"

  "I wouldn't want my daughter interning here," Remo replied dryly, "but if you mean the terrorists, they're history. You can start sending in the cavalry in a couple of minutes. Just give me a sec to sneak out of here."

  "The President?" Smith asked.

  "He's okay, Smitty," Remo said. "Although he did about as well as his ROTC commander would expect. He's hiding in the closet with the First Mutt while Lady Macbeth shreds the life out of every scrap of paper in a three-state area."

  Smith let out a protracted sigh. "That is a relief."

  "If your definition of relief is having these two in the pink, I don't want to know what you think anxiety is."

  The CURE director refused to get caught up in discussing the personalities of the First Family. "Who was behind the siege?" he pressed.

  "Hold on to your socks, Smitty," Remo said. "It's the same crew we're already after." Smith's voice was sharp. "How can you be certain?"

  "Because I'm up to my armpits in SAG membership cards," Remo said. "According to the nitwit in charge here, this was all staged to help the new Die Down movie. Oh, and the bombing in New York is tied in with all this, too."

  Smith could scarcely believe what he was hearing. "I will see which studio is producing that film," he said, swiveling to his computer.

  "Don't bother," Remo said. He took a deep breath and prayed Chiun wouldn't hold this against him. "It's Taurus, Smitty," he informed the CURE director.

  "Bindle and Marmelstein," Smith breathed.

  "I'll talk to them when I get back to Lalaland."

  "Be sure you do," Smith insisted. "It appears they are more deeply involved than you had earlier determined."

  "Yeah, but this wasn't on the agenda, Smitty. At least not when I talked to them."

  "There have not been any suspicious calls to either their homes or office," Smith explained. "If the telephone is the means by which the mastermind of these events contacts his employees, then this must have been planned prior to your visit with them."

  "Maybe," Remo said. "It's amazing that even a couple of dopes as big as Bindle and Marmelstein would go to these lengths to make sure some stupid movie is a hit."

  Alone in his drab office, Smith shook his head. "Not really," he said. "I have been doing some research. The market is very competitive. A big-budget Hollywood film can cost anywhere from 50 to 150 million dollars to produce. Some have gone even higher. Given the lucrative overseas and home-video markets, some would apparently do anything for a hit." Smith drew their conversation to a close. "Remo, if this is all, you should leave there. I do not like the idea of you staying in the White House any longer than is necessary."

  "There's something else that could be important, Smitty," Remo said gravely, before Smith could hang up. "The Twit of the Year in charge here said he had blueprints and diagrams of the White House layout. Stuff the public wouldn't have. I'm thinking big Hollywood contributors buying access."

  Smith pursed his lips. "Is it possible the President would jeopardize his personal security for a contribution?"

  "Where have you been, Smitry? For a thousand-buck legal-defense-fund contribution, you could probably buy the nuclear football. Anyway, I don't know what director or producers are behind Die Down IV, but there's hardly a summer that passes without Stefan Schoenburg or those other guys having a blockbuster."

  "I will look into that angle," Smith promised.

  "Okay, that's it. I'm outta here."

  The line went dead in Smith's ear. The instant it did, the CURE director turned to his keyboard. He began entering the commands that would send agents swarming into the White House. He wasn't concerned that Remo would be caught. Smith knew better. He had seen Remo in action too many times.

  After he was through, Smith paused at his keyboard.

  His thoughts turned to Stefan Schoenburg and to the anger the President would doubtless display if his Hollywood friend were disgraced by CURE. Or worse.

  In that moment, Smith decided that it didn't matter. Presidents came and Presidents went, but America and CURE had always survived them. He would use any and all means to learn who was behind this plot. The President's personal considerations be damned.

  At that moment of decision, it was as if a weight had been lifted from the CURE director's frail shoulders.

  Dropping his arthritic hands to his keyboard, Smith threw himself into his work with renewed vigor.

  Chapter 26

  The blinds were drawn tightly. The light dimmer was set just a hair above pitch-black. Bindle and Marmelstein were dark shadows in the claustrophobic gray of their sprawling Taurus office. They had built a barricade from the broken halves of Hank Bindle's desk. They hunkered behind their personal Maginot Line, bottles and tumblers arranged around them on the floor.

  The only sound for a long time was the tinkle of glass on glass followed by grateful slurping. As the shadows around them lengthened, Hank Bindle finally peeked nervously over the desk.

  "Are you crazy?" Bruce Marmelstein charged, dragging him back to the floor.

  "I have to pee, Bruce," Bindle complained. Marmelstein shoved an empty Waterford decanter into his partner's hands. "Here," he whispered.

  Bindle took the crystal container reluctantly. "Maybe we shouldn't stay here," he suggested as he filled the decanter with the contents of his nervous bladder. "He knows this is our office."

  "Which is exactly why we should stay here," Bruce Marmelstein argued. "If he connects the White House thing to us, then he'll come looking for us."

  Bindle put the now full decanter down. He was careful to separate it from the rest. "But won't he come straight here?" he asked, zipping up.

  "Yes," Mannelstein agreed. "But since he knows we'll know he's coming here, then he'll think we wouldn't be stupid enough to stay here."

  "But we are here," Bindle stressed.

  "Which proves we're innocent," Marmelstein concluded.

  "Stop it, Bruce," Bindle moaned. "You're making my boo-boo hurt." He held the cool crystal of his empty glass to his forehead. The bruise he'd gotten from bashing his head off the window pane was masked with makeup.

  "America has a short attention span," Marmelstein argued. "Think MTV generation. No one'll remember the White House thing tomorrow. Not even Mr. Desk Hater."

  But Bindle wasn't convinced. "I don't know," the Taurus cochair whispered. "The White House is, like, famous or something. What if they don't forget?"

  "Hey, it was not our fault," Bruce Marmelstein hissed angrily. "Sure, we blew up one measly floor in some nothing New York building and tried to blow up our own-stress our own-studio complex. But that's it."

  "But they might be mad about New York."

  "Naw." Marmelstein waved dismissively. Bourbon splashed out of his tumbler. "That was just promotion. Everyone'd understand that."

  Quietly, Hank Bindle hoped that Remo was part of the "everyone" to whom his partner referred. He was reaching for a fresh bottle when a soft bell sounded in the outer office. Their private elevator.

  Bindle froze, hand locked around the neck of the bottle.

  "It's him," he hissed.

  Fear propelled them to their knees. As they watched from behind the shattered desk, a dark shape appeared in the glass office doors. Bindle and Marmelstein's eyes were sick as they waited for Remo to enter.

 
The figure cupped hands over eyes, peering into the darkness of the office interior. Slowly, the door pushed open. The dark shape slipped inside the room.

  "Jeez, it's like the mummy's tomb in here," a nasal voice complained. "You guys ever see The Mummy? Boris Karloff acting, Karl Freund directing. I swiped enough from that to pad three movies. And mine had swearing."

  A balled fist jabbed out in the darkness, punching the dimmer control on the wall near the door. The office was suddenly awash in glaring light.

  Bindle and Marmelstein blinked away the stabbing pain in their eyes as they tried to focus on Quintly Tortilli.

  "Turn that off," Bindle said.

  "Why? So the big Oogidy-Boogidy can't find you?" Tortilli asked, fluttering his fingers. The director wore a neon-yellow leisure suit and a clashing green ruffled shirt.

  "We wouldn't have to hide if you didn't do what you promised you wouldn't," Marmelstein pouted as Quintly strutted over to them. "Why did you take over the White House?"

  As he perched on the side of the overturned desk, a grin split the knotted fist that was Quintly Tortilli's face. "What's it always about, fellas? Box office," he proclaimed.

  "That doesn't help us," Bindle whined up at him. "This studio is going down the tubes, Quintly. Ten blockbusters won't pull us out of the hole we're in."

  "One blockbuster and blowing up the studio might have helped," Marmelstein interjected. "If we'd collected the insurance money."

  "Might have," Bindle agreed. "But you didn't blow it up, Quintly. And you promised." Marmelstein sniffled morosely. "At best, we've got one piddling blockbuster, a failed studio, two golden parachutes and the entire industry laughing at us when ET. shows us in line at the Tinseltown unemployment office."

  Both Bindle and Marmelstein ducked behind the shattered desk. They reappeared a moment later, fat tumblers filled to the brims with scotch. They downed their drinks in simultaneous gulps.

  "Turn those frowns upside down," Tortilli said. "You're thinking, like, yesterday. I'm thinking tomorrow."

  "You can afford to think that way," Marmelstein said, his voice taking on an angry edge. "We might not even have a tomorrow. There's some desk-smashing psycho out there who's already been snooping around. You could have told us before yesterday you were the guy calling us for the past month, Quintly. But, no, you had to wait until you got back from Seattle-after you cashed all our checks. Now you've tied us in to the White House thing-which, as a promotional tool, was discussed, considered and ultimately rejected. By the by, if the cash for that was from a Taurus account, I want it back."

  "Sorry, man, no can do." Quintly shrugged. "It's already gone."

  "Well, you didn't blow up the studio," Bindle sniffed. "We want that money back."

  "Listen, guys, your fiduciary concerns viz the studio-nonblowing-up event are grounded, but are, you know, totally rejectable. Just because the place didn't blow up, it doesn't mean the money wasn't spent. Remember, guns and explosives don't come cheap."

  "It was doody," Bindle whined.

  "Shit costs," Tortilli said simply. "Plus the actors weren't free."

  "Extras are a dime a dozen," Bindle said. "It's that Hardwin ham you paid too much to. He's a freaking underpants pitchman, for God's sake. Couldn't you have gotten someone like an F. Murray Abraham or a Stacy Keach type?"

  Tortilli put on a reasonable tone. "If the utterly inconceivable happens and the shit hits the fan and this is traced back to you, do you want F. Murray Abraham associated in any way with a Taurus film?"

  They considered for half a heartbeat. "Okay, the Hardwin cash was worth it." Marmelstein nodded. "But do you really think this White House stunt of yours will help?"

  "It'll get us partway there." Tortilli nodded.

  "What does it matter?" Bindle asked morosely. "Even if this is the biggest blockbuster of the summer, we're going to be stuck. Taurus is over. Our careers are shot."

  Tortilli smiled. "Don't worry," the director said. "With the final act I've got planned, we won't just have the biggest blockbuster of the summer, but the biggest moneymaker of all time. I'm gonna sink Titanic and Phantom Menace. You'll be able to spin your way into the top spots at any studio in town. We'll all be sitting pretty."

  "There's more?" Bindle asked, eyes worried.

  "We've only had Acts One and Two. Don't forget Act Three." Tortilli smiled.

  Bindle and Marmelstein exchanged a single worried glance. Their shoulders slumped.

  "We're gonna trust you on this one, Quintly," Marmelstein sighed. "Since you're a genius and all."

  To celebrate their partnership, Bindle poured them all a drink from the decanter at his knees. The three men drank greedily. For some reason the liquor was warm and watery.

  "Tastes salty," Hank Bindle observed as he polished off the last of the strange yellow liquid.

  Chapter 27

  Lee Matson had wanted to be a Green Beret ever since he had seen the John Wayne movie of the same name.

  "They're all over this killing stuff," he had assured his Berwick, Pennsylvania, high-school guidance counselor, who was trying to convince Lee to give college a try.

  "Yes," Mrs. Patterson had said uncomfortably. Since striding into her office in his fatigues and boots, Matson, Lee W., had seemed a little too preoccupied with blood and bludgeoning and eviscerating small woodland creatures. He also never blinked. Not once. Her flesh crawled underneath her sensible cotton blouse.

  "That's maybe something we can see as a goal a little farther down the road," the middle-aged woman offered, clearing her throat. "But have we considered the sound foundation college can give us?"

  "Speaking of sounds," Lee enthused, unblinking eyes wide with enthusiasm, "did you know I've recorded eleven separate and distinct sounds a chipmunk makes when you hammer a nail into its head?"

  As he went on to mimic each individual mortal squeak, Mrs. Patterson was already on the phone to the local recruiting office.

  Just like that, he was in the Army.

  And just like that, he was out two weeks later. "I swear I didn't know the bayonet was loaded, Sergeant," Lee begged as the boot-camp gate was locked behind him. "And that landmine was like that when I got there!"

  The sergeant used a bandaged hand to push his hat back on his head. His eyes-one of them blackened-were pools of roiling menace. "In ten seconds, I open fire."

  "But I want to proudly wear a green beret," Lee whined.

  "Join the Girl Scouts."

  To Lee, it was the most devastating thing that could possibly have happened. He had only one dream in life: to kill with the Green Berets. Now that dream had been dashed.

  After washing out at boot camp, Lee began to take stock of his life and his future prospects. Things hadn't turned out the way he had expected. Okay. The same could be said for a lot of people. Lee decided to grab the bull by the horns. He might not be able to enjoy the legal protection of killing in the name of the American government but, by all that was holy, he would kill.

  Of course, Lee didn't just run out and kill the first person he met. He wasn't crazy, after all. In spite of what his parents, teachers, Mrs. Patterson, his mailman or the United States Army thought.

  Instead, Lee decided to hire himself out as a commando. A soldier of fortune with a don't-mess-with-me attitude and a high-tech, kick-ass arsenal for hire. Unfortunately, there just wasn't that much call for mercenaries in junta-free Berwick, Pennsylvania. Lee moved to New York.

  It would have been great there for him if he hadn't come to the city during law-and-order Mayor Randolph Gillotti's ironfisted reign. The one time he tried to distribute his assassin-for-hire pamphlets in Midtown, he'd been arrested.

  There was a long kill-free dry spell. Things got so bad that Lee was about to go the serial-killer route. He was on his way out the door of his apartment one evening to pick up his first tunnel-bunny hooker victim when the phone rang.

  Lee had placed classified ads in all the major commando niche magazines. It turned out that the one
in Guns and Blammo had caught someone's eye.

  "Is this Captain Kill?" the giddy, rapid-fire voice asked. The caller sounded like a record recorded at 33 rpm and played back at 45.

  Visions of murdered prostitutes dancing in his head, it took Lee a second to remember his topsecret commando code name, known only to a few thousand magazine readers.

  "Yeah, that's me," he admitted gruffly. "Whaddaya got?"

  Lee tried to sound like a cool professional. But when the voice on the phone began to outline the specifics of the job for which Lee was being hired, the novice soldier of fortune balked.

  "You want me to kill a family?" Lee asked uncertainly.

  "Not just any family. Their name's gotta be Anderson. Has to be a mom, dad, son, daughter. The whole Donna Reed thing."

  "I don't know," Lee said. "My specialty generally is overthrowing neo-Communist regimes. Maybe you have a South American dictator you want iced?"

  The caller was adamant: Name had to be Anderson. Family of four. And there were other specifics. "Why a tunnel?" Lee frowned.

  "Do you want me to call someone else?"

  "No, no," Lee said hastily. "Tunnels are good. We dug lots of them in Nam."

  Lee, who was born two years after the fall of Saigon and whose only knowledge of Vietnam came from his favorite John Wayne film, listened intently to the plan the caller outlined for him.

  It sounded almost like a plot synopsis. So detailed-even down to the methods that were to be used for killing the two Anderson females-that Lee felt an involuntary chill.

  His only question came at the end, after his would-be employer mentioned once more how important it was that the family be named Anderson. "Where do I find them?" Lee asked. "Anywhere. Try a Maryland phone book."

  "Why Maryland?"

  The caller was so happily casual it was almost unnerving. "Why not?" he suggested.

  After two weeks of legwork, Lee found what he was looking for in his third randomly selected phone book.

  It had taken a while to dig the tunnel, but once he was through, the rest worked like clockwork. The murders, stealing his precious Girl Scout beret and sash as trophies, his escape. It was like poetry.